Thursday, August 2, 2018

Dreamed I lived out
in a bucolic village
on the fringe of a bigger
and even
more bucolic village—
inside of a still-
larger and much
prettier one—which functioned
as some sort of an ad-
hoc spacecraft.

My concerns, though, were still
quite provincial—coffee, walk
the dog, grip her leash a little
harder rounding the corner
apartment with the
two keyed-up corgis, feel
the rough old nylon
chafing my skin, causing
me to wonder how each
of your freckles is doing—are they
still migrating? and where
in the universe yours
and my fingerprints might
be mirrored in the geography of
a galactic super-cluster. And then

look down again and realize
that, in this particular universe, I don't
have a dog, you do; and I have
that exotic new-world
disease—which causes me
to stay indoors half-asleep
all day in front of a muted TV
or laptop computer,
putting all I remember
of a dream I had
on mock-paper.

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

That little child
curled up and
asleep inside me—
who likes
to pick all the stiff
weeds from the curbsides,
the ones with stringy yellow
and purple-ish brambly flowers,
and then
pedal like crazy
back toward his mother,
who's sauntering
with that pretty listlessness of hers
down the same big road
at a comfortable
but gratifying distance behind—
is starting
to get heavy.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

I don't understand, but
after all this time spent
talking about it, I can just bet
how the sharp electric wavering
of your own belief in what you're saying
must continue to elude and to shock you;

I can picture, between the clouds
and mud inside you, how it must arc and fork, how it
curves in hot to kiss and hug, then
cuts cold and turns sharp as rude slag,
to stab your throat, dooming your capacity
to even change the subject.

In the midst of the torrent, whenever
the dog turns a little circle, or a distant siren wail
passes, I'm hit with fiercer and hotter
bolts of pure sympathy. I know this: not only
do I hate all of it, but I also desperately want to
hate it all for you.

I wish I could just resent
the force of friction itself—the aftermath
of its intrusion

so plain
in the purple-pink streaks
which decorate your milky neck

when, at last, it swings and curves open
to lay its wrecked head on another
dumb and uncomprehending shoulder.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

I see your wheels
turning up there—proud hawk, or maybe
eagle, even—I'm not
sure. But I don't
have time to keep looking up, I'm swamped
down here as it is—where I work
as the night janitor
in this jumbled jail of earth and evening trees.

Where there's pipes and paths
that need constant clearing, more
and more cells to clean; where
love's labor needs an awful
lot more work (words are like plungers
and solvent and grease, they
won't tend to things which are already free);
where I only have to think
of unstopping sinks and won't be seduced
or distracted or made
dizzy by your majesty.

The evening sky
is clear, your movements are crisp circles,
my actions are furtive
and dark (and they must be); they don't
involve soaring free or flapping
away or getting too far ahead of myself or
anything like that, I won't
let them, I can't. So sure, go ahead—the kingdom
and the power and the glory
are yours, I'm not interested. I really don't
envy you them
anymore.

Monday, January 8, 2018

this waking life is
merely
obfuscating my illimitable dreaming. sure
let's have another loud

mournful celebration—sure, of the death
of the night, of the life of the world we could
still walk around dead in. sure.

I'm humming, I'm joking, I'm not
humming, I'm scrolling, tearing,
improvising through pages—people,
years, projects, dollars. millions of
billions of them out there, but who's counting,
just listen—
even the word "billions" sounds like the coins

getting yanked out of some digital
slot machines' mouths
and hitting the ground sure—just
make up your mind or don't I
don't care just let me make up mine...

in the even audible spaces between breathing, I hear
a kind of existential silence
emanating from all these smart devices.
all trash
compacted news, rude
teenage poltergeists of photographs, clever
ticker tape commentary—

Dan Smart is a poet, writer, and musician who currently works as News Editor and contributor at online music publication Tiny Mix Tapes, contributing editor at nonprofit writing and tutoring center 826CHI, and producer/engineer at ECHO/NORMAL recording studio in Chicago, IL. He received his BA in Creative Writing from Illinois Wesleyan University in 2006, where he has since returned to guest-lecture on poetry on several occasions. Publications include Spoon River Poetry Review, The Legendary, Cease Cows Magazine, Red Fez, Hooligan Magazine, poetry/criticism blog Structure And Surprise. His daily-poetry blog, Rhythm Is The Instrument, has been active since 2013 and presently contains over 1,500 works.